


Eclipse

by spaceOdementia



Category: Compilation of Final Fantasy VII, Final Fantasy VII (Video Game 1997), Final Fantasy VII Remake (Video Game 2020)
Genre: Actually Rating WILL Change, Adventure & Romance, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Cowboys and Indians, Alternate Universe - Fantasy, BAMF Tifa Lockhart, Cloud is a ranger, Death, Developing Relationship, Drama, Drama & Romance, Emotional Hurt, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Enemies to Lovers, Eventual Smut, F/M, Fighting, Hate to Love, Magic, Opposing opinions, POV Cloud Strife, POV Tifa Lockhart, Rating May Change, Remember When I Asked Anyone What I Was Doing? I STILL DON'T KNOW, Romance, See Cowboys and Indians above, Someone send help because I have too many ideas okay thank you goodbye, Tifa is part of a tribe, Unresolved Romantic Tension, Unresolved Sexual Tension, Weird powers, Will it make sense? probably not, Will probably hide feelings behind belligerent sexual tension, skirmishes, there is magic in here, tribes
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-03-08
Updated: 2021-03-07
Packaged: 2021-03-14 21:16:03
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,940
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29548491
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spaceOdementia/pseuds/spaceOdementia
Summary: Part of the Seto Tribe in the Western Continent, Tifa Lockhart has been fighting against the encroachment of the Eastern settlers ever since her mother passed away. There is no peace. Minds are closed. Greed is certain. And Tifa's powerful Gi rages in a constant battle underneath her skin.The Rangers are the land's security. They are supposed to help, breaking apart skirmishes and encouraging harmony between villagers and tribes. That is what they claim, but everyone knows this is false. They are against the tribes. Most of the time, it seems as if the earth itself is against them, too.When one scouting mission goes horribly wrong, Tifa must finally come to terms with her powers, her inner battles, and what her people truly need - even if what they need is the one thing she cannot give.
Relationships: Cloud Strife/Tifa Lockhart, Tifa Lockhart/Aerith Gainsborough Friendship, Tifa Lockhart/Cloud Strife, Zack Fair/Aerith Gainsborough
Comments: 7
Kudos: 29





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> HAHAHA why am I starting another project, you may ask? LISTEN. I don't know. When do I ever know? This idea has been inside of my brain for _months_ and it has finally told me enough is enough. So here I am. Yet again. What have I done. I don't know how long it will be, but as of now it should NOT interfere with the progress of my Mirrored Heart story. 
> 
> Somebodys_Nightmare: YOU KNOW WHAT I'M GOING TO SAY. And it's that I love you. 
> 
> Happy reading, everyone! Please let me know your thoughts, ideas, ANYTHING. I am here for all of it. <3

Tifa is always running. They have always been running. Running toward something, running away, it didn’t seem to matter.

When the rangers first came to their settlement, it had been peaceful. They made an agreement with the tribe, creating borders that would not extend into different communities. They would not encroach. It had never been meant to be a malevolent ending on either side.

Then Tifa’s mother died.

* * *

_Run, my darling,_ her mother would tell her. _Run. Let mama do her duty._

Run. Always running.

When her mother died, Tifa’s world became one moment. She saw the katana slash into her mother’s sternum, the blood pouring out of her in thick, dark, garnet rivulets. It sliced into her with a vicious fury, the crack of bone as loud as a rumble of thunder across the prairie land.

Tifa hadn’t run that day. She didn’t want to. There was an ugly feeling coalescing inside of her, deep and unintentional and unprecedented. A burgeoning instinct that told her to stay. She hadn’t known what it was at the time.

Her mother spun her Gi around her, white and brilliant like the glare of a mid afternoon sun. It reflected off her like a blanket of snow, blinding and beautiful, made up of love and care and protection and strength. All of the most important things—all of the strongest things.

Her mother’s Gi was the most powerful thing Tifa knew to exist. It made the earth rumble and the wind sing. It caressed her in a blanket full of compassion.

White Gi was the one everyone strove for. It was the rarest of its kind.

When Tifa saw the sword, blazing a path toward her mother, she knew it would be parried. It was going to be struck and shatter like china against marble. It was going to break, and the man was going to break with it.

But it didn’t. It cut through her mother like a heated knife through butter. Easily dispatched. Easily gone, sucking her soul from her body and out of the world.

He mother choked, but she never cried.

Tifa screamed. She felt the panic build. She felt the rush of the disbelief, the incapability to understand. The fading light of her mother hit her eyes and she _knew_ what was happening, she knew it and she couldn’t know it and she couldn’t believe in it because her mother was _everything._

The Gi curled up inside her, solidifying into rocks. Tifa’s fists clenched. She stared at the man with the sword, twisting it out of her mother. She stared and screamed, so long and so loudly. The rocks unfurled inside of her, caressing her bones and covering her like a vine on a trellis, thick and unrelenting and parasitic. She felt so much hate, so much _how dare you_ , so much—so much despair.

That’s what she’ll call it later. Despair.

The blackened Gi, like soot and smoke, like debris from a forest fire, like the rotten tang of charred flesh, sizzled out of her like a bullet. It cut through the man in a dozen perforations. It marked him. It twisted up inside of him. His skin began to sink. His bones turned brittle. His hair fell out of his head like grasses ripped from the fields. He fell to the ground in a pile of bones, a husk no longer to see the light of the world.

His soul had been taken. His soul was gone.

Just like her mother’s. Just like her own.


	2. One

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tifa _might_ seem OOC at first, but I promise she'll become her real self soon enough. <3
> 
> I will never stop saying this, but Somebodys_Nightmare, thanks again for beta'ing and encouraging my strange, suffocating creative endeavors.
> 
> Happy reading!

“This community has grown.”

“It will only keep growing, and they’ll keep taking. How much until they’re sated? How much more will we be forced to sacrifice to these _épits.”_

Tifa is silent as she watches the going ons of the village below, listening to her friends. Each time they follow her on these secret outings, their energy simmers and flows like a metal pot over a fire. Their hate stews and swirls, and it helps validate her own feelings. Her emotions aways seem weighty and hot, but sharing it with her people—her team and tribe—helps her manage it. It alleviates the spell around her neck, like the teasing grip of a fist. It can choke her if she lets it. A constant battle, breathing through its hold. Four years have passed, and she continues to struggle.

Looking down upon these villagers, though…lying beside her comrades…this is what she needs.

“We must wait,” she says quietly. “We bide our time, but we remind them of their fear.”

Toman and Ott, the two who had silently signaled their want to come with her, nod their heads gravely. Toman, silver eyed and dark-haired, is packed with wiry muscle underneath the rough cotton of his tunic. It is embroidered with garnet and blue thread around the collar—the main colors of their tribe. It hangs loosely on him, denoting he has not fully become a man.

Ott has lighter brown hair, a sharper, angled chin as compared to Toman’s still softer features. His eyes are smaller, hardened stones within his eye sockets. They are a dark, angry russet brown, almost a shadow of Toman’s silver pupils. He is thicker in his arms and torso, older than Tifa’s nineteen years by two. He has joined her for scouting trips prior to this one. He knows what they entail—what they are supposed to entail—and what they have now evolved into.

This is their battle, stifled though it is.

“Is the moon powder in place?” Tifa asks them. Ott grins, a deadly slash across his face. Toman swallows but he nods and answers, “Yes.”

“Good,” she says, turning her gaze back to the village below. People mill about, the women tending to gardens, some of the males patching up roofs or other areas of housing. Most men, however, work in the Plant, robust with plumes of bluish green smoke. It is not white, gray, or black—the natural colors. No. Sometimes it shimmers pink and yellow, like the rainbow of spring. Other times, it is violet and gold, mimicking an illustrious sunset. It always glows like a spell from a summoner’s book. In all its glory, it is abhorrent, jewels decorating a witch’s wrinkled neck. There is teeth within that smoke. Teeth and claws.

Laughter from the children and amiable chatter break her contemplation. Tifa watches their happiness. It has never been her goal to take away any young life nor to erase the brilliance of their joy, but to dilute it. To lick the fabric of that innocence with a gentle flame, and to let every one know that it can be burned and tarnished forever. It _can_ be stolen and erased.

All of these people are equally to blame, and it is to remind them and every one else—family, friends, loved ones—that they are not alone. They are never alone. These lands were once free, and they must remember what they’ve taken. What they’ve done.

She tips her head to Toman. “You can close your eyes if you want. The first time is always the hardest.”

Toman’s face ripples with offense, his eyes narrowing, but it does not hide the sweat on his brow or the tic in his hands. The pad of his thumb continuously taps against his forefinger.

“No, I will not look away,” he states, voice stern.

Ott snorts. “Five gil he throws his lunch.”

Toman elbows him hard in the ribs. Ott only sniggers more. Tifa presses her lips together in disapproval at them.

“I can and will send you both back. I don’t need either of you here.” It’s a partial truth. She’s never admitted to why she brings them—sneaking and planting the powder notwithstanding. She hasn’t told them that it helps tame her energy. It never seems…reasonable to say.

They sober up enough at her words, though Ott’s eyes continue to sparkle along their jagged edges. “The Chieftess commands us,” he says with thinly veiled sarcasm. He knows how much the name irks her.

“For that, I’ll kick your ass in the training grounds.”

Smirking, he answers, “I’ll happily take up that offer, my lady.”

Tifa purses her lips again, the gravity of her power hitting her once more as she gazes upon the village. “What we do is for our people, our freedom, our honor. We are the flint and the fuel—“

“—for our Flame Eternal.” Toman and Ott finish. Ott finally loses his smirk, and Toman’s sweat progressively trails down his temples.

Tifa doesn’t have to reach far for her power. It surfaces to her fingertips with the barest coo and caress. Her vision hones on the barrel at the corner of town, filled with enough powder to flatten the Plant warden’s home, part of the plant itself, and a few other infrastructures. It will hurt the economy of the town, wound or kill a handful of the citizens, and cause enough damage to keep all of the _épits_ on edge, wondering, glancing over their shoulders…

Tifa’s Gi sparks between her fingers, and as soon as she is about to send its smoking dart into that barrel, a shadow flickers in her mind. A presence. Two of them.

An arrow of that pungent, iridescent and unnatural smoke burns into the ground beside her head. Ott curses and Toman stumbles around, hand dashing to the saber across his back.

“Not so fast, my _lady._ ”

Tifa is abruptly wrenched out of her focus, Gi furling up into her stomach. Vision clearing, she rolls over, standing and bracing herself into a fighting stance.

Zack Fair. A Ranger. Him and one other stand feet— _feet—_ away from them, almost casually on the decline of the hill and staring up at them. The words are said as though they had been listening to their conversation minutes before. How long have they been watching? Waiting?

Tifa’s jaw clenches so hard, her muscle almost cramps. It’s the same Ranger who started to monitor these lands after…after her mother. And the other—

His hand faintly gleams with residual mist from the unnatural…magic. Villagers call it that. The world is beginning to call it that. It’s a pretty word, too beautiful for what it signifies.

Tifa’s people call it something else. They call it _asgina_. The devil’s work.

She eyes the stranger. He is not the usual second Ranger that comes. Tifa momentarily wonders where he is. Had he been dispatched elsewhere? She has never seen this one before with his blonde hair, his deeply pulverizing blue eyes. Perhaps he’s new and in training. Tifa almost bristles. For this to be a _training_ session of all things…with _her_ people…

Her Gi remains just underneath the layer of her skin, lying in wait like a snake in the grasses.

The one who had spoken has the audacity to smile, like he does at every meeting. It digs under her skin. He is always so gregarious, mouth slashed in a perpetual smile as though he is not cutting her people down. But he’s a killer. They claim to work for the people of the world, and it is only true if you were born into the right ones. Rangers protect these new villagers, the individuals encroaching and migrating over these lands. The ones who take. They do not protect the ones who have already been here for hundreds and hundreds of years, who have lived and nurtured the earth with their essence and love.

Zack Fair’s smile might be the most dangerous to exist. Two-faced. Sinister. The man beside him stares at all of them with a bland disdain. He is uninterested, his demeanor glazed with apathy. It looks like he doesn’t even care about being here, as if this entire endeavor is a waste of his precious time. Tifa’s Gi writhes inside of her as she catches his eyes. Her lips curl over her teeth in a soft snarl. He merely tilts his head at her in response, and it’s almost enough for her to forge a path through the air, targeting his heart with the darkness of her Gi.

Zack slides his large broadsword from his back, holding it in front of him. “After all we’ve been through together…I know that look of yours, Tifa. I’d warn you to keep it at bay.”

Ott and Toman move at the words, flanking her. Ott is on her left, and Toman is on her right. Toman has already unsheathed his saber, and Ott prefers two scimitars, gripping each and settling down into a squat.

The weapons look so rudimentary compared to Zack’s Ranger-modified sword. Its metal is honed and shining, any scars it might have accrued over his missions buffed or burned out of it. They look sharper and deadlier each time Tifa beholds one. She glares at that, too.

The blonde male hasn’t yet pulled out his sword, his right hand on the hilt and his left still gleaming from the _asgina._

“You’d warn _me?”_ Tifa asks. “I thought you’d know how easily we can kill you by now, Fair.”

Zack’s grin widens. “I _do_ know, but we don’t want any bloodshed today. No one needs to get hurt, least of all innocent civilians.”

“There are no such thing as _innocent_ civilians,” Ott growls. “They’ve been burning our crops, stealing our livestock. They’ve been soiling our lands with their ilk.”

Zack’s grin begins to falter. “Burning your crops? Stealing?”

“You would know if you cared to help _us,”_ Toman, his voice shaky but certain. “Instead of catering to who gives you the biggest reward.”

At that, Zack’s eyebrows pinch together, and he frowns. “That’s not true.”

Quietly, Tifa says, “It’s been four years, now, Zack. We will not stop. If no one decides to help us, then so be it. We’ll fight for ourselves.”

She steps one foot back, raising her fists in her fighting stance. She does not unlock her Gi, not yet.

It is unsettling how deeply set Zack’s frown becomes. He is acting as if this _isn’t_ the normal way their interactions go. Tifa doesn’t take the bait. “If you don’t want to experience bloodshed,” Tifa says, eyes hardening. “ _Leave.”_

The blonde man brings his sword forward, the _zing_ of metal on leather loud and reverberating in the few feet of space between them.

“Can’t do that,” he says, voice cold and severe. It is the opposite of his companion. “If you don’t dispose of that powder, we’ll do it for you.”

Tifa matches his icy stare. She shakes her head.

“We’ll have to agree to disagree…Ranger. What’s your name?” Tifa narrows her eyes in further examination. “You’re new here.”

His face betrays nothing. “None of your concern.”

Zack’s frown fades a bit, but his next smile is forced. “C’mon, Tifa. Go home to your dad. I’m sure he’s worried sick.”

Ott visibly bristles. “You don’t talk about him.”

Zack raises his opposite hand. “Alright. I won’t. Let’s just—“

It’s Toman who surprises Tifa. He bares his teeth and states, “I think bringing home a Ranger _usga_ would be a nice trophy, wouldn’t it?”

 _Usga._ A head from a vicious beheading. That’s what it means. Tifa glances sidelong at Toman’s vibrating skin. He’s strong even though he is not quite a man. He is able to wield his Gi tightly, with controlled, concentrated movements.

Zack steadies the hold on his hilt. The blonde man glances at his friend before he, too, widens his stance.

Tifa senses Ott move first, running at Zack. Zack dodges and Cloud takes the brunt of his attack, blocking and parrying. Ott, for his size, is agile. He moves with a fluid grace, but the power behind his strikes give him an edge in most fights.

Toman shields himself within the fog of his purple Gi. He rushes Zack next, quickly after his dodge from Ott. Tifa reaches out with her Gi in the interim, using its black claws to drain the two, hooking into their guards and the tender skin underneath their armor. Her hooks are smaller than they used to be, not as deep or debilitating, no more than a leech sucking out their blood and stifling their own manufactured magic. Her natural Gi versus their _asgina._ It is like skin versus steel.

The Rangers have gotten fancier equipment over the years. Stronger mutations. Whatever they do to them in the bigger cities to protect them from the ancient magic of the world, Tifa is uncertain. They hear a lot of anecdotes and tall tales about what they do to the Rangers. None seem realistic enough, exaggerations lurking behind the words. Storytellers and wayfarers seem to have a flair for the dramatic when they bring tribes information. Tifa has always listened to their words with a grain of salt, but at how difficult it is to curl her Gi into them and have it stick…Tifa momentarily wonders if all those stories hadn’t been an exaggeration.

Once she hooks them as much as she’s able, she pounces. She edges into the fight with Toman and Zack, throwing a punch and kick between Toman’s swings and Zack’s dodges. He moves at the speed of a Ranger—too quick to be normal, his reaction time twice as fast as any other human. He ducks, parries, attacks both of them without breaking a sweat or losing track of their movements. Tifa twists her Gi deeper now that she can breathe in his exhales, taste the rising temperature of his blood. She urges the Gi in like a sharp bite into tender flesh. She sees the wince he tries to hide as he swings at her, and she slides underneath and roundhouse kicks him in the ribs. He hisses but he doesn’t stagger, blocking a strike from Toman and sending a flying elbow toward her cheek. She dodges and goes to punch his exposed flank before she feels the other Ranger’s presence behind her. She halts her attack to roll sideways, the Ranger’s sword cutting into the ground she had been standing on a moment prior.

Ott is several feet away from them, rolling back to his feet. His eyes are boiling with rage as he readies his scimitars, running at the Ranger with a yell. Tifa forces her Gi into his throat, narrowing his windpipe, before she swipes her leg at his ankles. He deftly moves out of the way and swings the flat side of his sword up to block Ott’s jumping strike.

Ott snarls, “ _Pushite.”_

The Ranger glares, pushing him off. Tifa kicks at his face, and he ducks, slicing his sword through the air at her stomach. She flips over it, imagining the grip on his throat to tighten and tighten. The Ranger’s lips twist as he dodges Ott’s next onslaught of attacks. They move too quickly for Tifa to safely attack, so she brings up her Gi in both Zack and the other Ranger, twisting and twisting like a winding toy.

It’s enough to notice Zack stumble against one of Toman’s strikes, and he falls to the ground. Toman jumps on him immediately, pressing his knees into Zack’s thighs and bringing his saber down in a vicious shot to Zack’s gut. Zack sloppily swings his sword at the saber, and it goes flying off to the side. Toman grabs his sword arm and presses down, reaching at his side and drawing a hunting knife, moving it so fast that Zack catches his wrist an inch before it cuts into his throat. Their arms and bodies tremble with the effort between them.

“D-don’t—don’t make me kill you,” Zack huffs. “Please.”

“Kill _me?”_ Toman asks, a crazed smile growing on his face. “I’ll watch your soul leave your eyes, Ranger.”

Tifa is about to slip in and incapacitate Zack further before she’s distracted by a yell.

One of Ott’s forearms has been slashed through, from his wrist to his elbow. The blood pours like a steady stream, and his hand has a hard time gripping the scimitar. Tifa winds her Gi around his wrist, interweaving with his own Gi and helping his strength. His teeth grit in pain, but he charges at the other Ranger again. Their steel clashes with sparks.

“Tifa!” Toman’s shout pierces the air, his tone tinged with fatigue and desperation. “Help me finish him!”

There is a dark bloodlust in Toman’s eyes that surprises Tifa. From what she had seen from him today, she would not guess that a fight like this would affect him this way—then again, Tifa shouldn’t judge. She knows exactly what a fight like this can do to someone.

What’s even more astonishing is that Zack is slowly losing the battle. Toman’s hunting knife has pressed into Zack’s skin enough to draw a few beads of blood. Toman continues to press Zack’s sword arm down into the ground, his purple Gi coalescing around his elbow to keep it locked into the dirt. Tifa has a mind to think that Zack could move his arm if he wanted. Toman’s Gi is strong, but it isn’t strong enough against Zack’s…modifications, whatever they are. If Tifa’s Gi has a hard enough time penetrating into them, then Toman’s must only brush the surface, but they struggle and writhe against one another. Zack tries to roll them over, but Toman holds fast and steady, his knees still digging into Zack’s thighs.

Tifa obeys Toman’s request, bolstering his strength—trying to bolster his strength. She’s never been pulled in so many directions before. Two, she can handle. Three is pushing it. But holding together Ott’s grip, seizing and choking two Ranger’s life essences, pouring energy into Toman’s muscle…

Tifa has to give one of them up. It won’t hold. If she keeps her leash on the Rangers, focus on them instead…Toman is close to finishing Zack, and Ott will have to lose one scimitar. He’s adept enough with one. Then Tifa can aid them with her fists and legs.

“Ott, I have to drop it,” she warns before she does, and she hears his pained grunt as the scimitar releases and thuds onto the grasses. He continues the offense against the Ranger, but Tifa notices his sharp blue glance in her direction. She pelts into his sternum with her Gi, and she sees him lose his footing. Ott capitalizes, slicing the Ranger’s bicep before he has to dodge and parry.

“Toman, I can hold him, but that’s all I can do,” she says, sweat beginning to slide down her chest and to her stomach.

“Don’t worry, my _lady,”_ he answers, and the boy…the boy is gone. “This _usga_ is all mine.”

This is what he needed, it seems, to break through the barrier of manhood. Tifa watches him evolve right before her Gi stained eyes, crowded as they are in its viscous smoke. Her vision morphs behind the erupting power in her veins, and she can only see the pearls of each one of their spirits. She hones in on Zack’s essence—a glowing light in the deep pit of his stomach, so close to his spine. She digs through his bones to try to get there, but it is just out of reach. So near she can almost smell it. She focuses on it desperately, but she cannot focus like this and fight at the same time. She must stand still, and while it makes her vulnerable, she trusts Toman and Ott. They’ll all walk away with a few cuts and bruises and nothing more. They always do, no matter how many threats and attacks, no matter how thick the bloodlust is in the atmosphere.

“Stop it, kid. I swear it. Don’t make me kill you,” Zack grunts.

Toman’s laugh is breathy and strained. His words are deadly and cold. “I can’t wait to see the face you leave for me when death takes you.”

She feels a ripple against her mind. She isn’t sure what it is until Zack rasps, “I’m sorry.”

The ripple becomes a fracture, and Tifa stumbles back. Her hold on Zack loosens and snaps as if torn. It’s like an elastic band striking her face, and she blinks rapidly, trying to regain her vision.

When she does, all of the air leaves her lungs.

Zack has sliced through Toman’s side, his sword embedded into his ribs and spine, the point of it visible from Toman’s back. His gasp is wretched and wet, blood staining the inside of his lips before it drips down his chin. Eyes wide, the hunting knife is a centimeter, maybe more, inside of Zack’s neck, and it drops into the grass at his side.

“I’m so sorry,” Zack wheezes. “I’m so sorry.”

“Toman!” Ott screams, completely disengaging from the other Ranger. “How fucking _dare you.”_

He begins to sprint toward’s Zack, who is sliding his sword from Toman’s prostrate body. Tifa feels his Gi on the wind—feels it breeze past her, collect around her. Goosebumps rise around her neck, and the ghost of his words freeze her tears.

 _I’m sorry I couldn’t do it, Tifa,_ Toman’s voice circles. _I couldn’t kill him. I’m sorry._

His last thoughts. His last moment. It’s an apology.

Tifa’s stomach quivers. Her body shakes. Her vision shrouds with black again—her Gi and her power. Everything inside of her. It blinds her only for her to see it all _._ Zack’s essence is as blinding as fresh snow reflecting against the sun. She stares at it, feeling the hum of her power settle around it like a fish in a net. She is going to trap it, feel it squirm in her hands. Slippery and shiny, beautiful and soon—soon extinguished and gone. That two-faced smile. That happiness, that false joy in his eyes every time he visits her—gone. _Gone._

_Gone._

_Gone gone gone_

Tifa doesn’t realize she’s screaming—doesn’t realize she’s crying as she flicks out her power from her stomach like a tentacle. It wraps around him and she finds his soul, sucks on it, _eats it._

Pain lances into her system from her navel to her sternum to the base of her throat. Her power sears back into her, the link between them broken. Her eyes fly open, and she sees the sky overhead. It is closer to her than before, and she realizes that she’s in the air. She is soaring, and she hurts, hurts so deeply, hurts so wretchedly that she must be following Toman’s spirit. He must have hefted her up from underneath her shoulders, taking her with him to show her where the dead go.

She’s snapped back into reality when she lands, crashing into the ground. She loses her breath, arching but hurting, and her hand reaches up to where she hurts the most. Her stomach and chest. Bleeding. Wounded. She finds a deep, hot gash there, and her vision swims. How had that happened?

She lolls her head to the side, her blurred eyes finding the blonde headed Ranger kneeling over Zack Fair, his sword soaked with blood. He shakes Zack before he coughs, a deep breath shaking his body. Alive. Zack is alive and Toman is not.

The blonde Ranger looks up and catches her eyes. Finally, they are pinched not with apathy or bland disdain. They seem…sad. Enraged.

“This wasn’t supposed to happen,” he calls to her. “This wasn’t—“

A roar breaks across the opening. The Ranger’s face steels, but…

She knows that roar. Better than anyone. Her friend. He’s her best friend. Nanaki. He has been with her through all of it. Of course, he’ll be here for her, now.

Nanaki stands above her, his shadow appearing almost immediately.

“You have gone too far this time, Rangers,” he growls.“Spilt blood on our soil. Taken two lives too many. Toman…Ott…”

Tifa’s stomach, though draining her blood, runs cold. Ott, too? _Ott?_ She can’t see the field around her, her periphery fuzzy and unfocused, and her head is too heavy to swivel. Where is he? _Where is he?_

Her friend’s tail flicks in and out of her vision. “Next time I see you, you will die.”

There is no threat to his words. It is a promise. His words ring with truth, and there is nothing more frightening than the honesty of his Gi. She can see the two Rangers realize this too, their faces drawn.

She is limp as he situates her on his back. She attempts to curl around him, her strength vanished, and she says, wobbly, “Ott?”

Nanaki rumbles in affirmation. Tifa chokes. “I’m—I’m sorry,” she whispers. “I’m bleeding on your fur.”

“Stay alive and I’ll forgive you.”

Tifa feels her tears fall down her cheeks, the tenderness of his muscle against her comforting but not enough to soothe her pain. Toman. Ott. Her _people._

She turns her eyes back to the Rangers, and the hate bubbles against the wound in her stomach. The rage. That despair. It comes and it goes every day, but this is different. As they turn away toward home, she uses one last, gasping breath of her Gi, willing it to find them. She wills it to slip between their ribs, slice through muscle and bone, curl up behind the sternum, and weave itself into the threads of their hearts.

She sees that blonde Ranger’s blue eyes as they gallop in the opposite direction, and she imagines her Gi staining them gray and onyx so he can see what she sees.

So he can regret for the rest of his life before she finds him.

Before she kills him.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm going to post this prologue and the first chapter all at once, because why not?


End file.
